Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.
This post was originally published on August 3, 2021
Hello, we’re Goldie MacDonald and Anita McLees from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2020, CDC scientists and communication specialists prepared principles and preferred terms for non-stigmatizing, bias-free language to guide employees engaged in COVID-19 response activities. At the time, we were both deployed to this response and read the document in earnest. While others have known this for some time, we learned that stakeholder can have “a violent connotation for tribes and urban Indian organizations.” As we looked at the term more closely, we saw that others have questioned its origins and use. For example, in 9 Terms to Avoid in Communications with Indigenous Peoples, authors in British Columbia, Canada explained that “Indigenous Peoples are rights and title holders not stakeholders so avoid this term at all costs.” In Banishing “Stakeholders”, Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, discussed the term as having a “mercenary connotation.” It was used to refer to someone who “held the money of bettors while the game was on.” He explained that this meaning likely evolved to current understandings of the term that include individuals or groups with a concern or interest (e.g., financial) in an endeavor, organization, program, etc. In the same article, he cautioned that the catchall phrase “obscures the landscape in question, much like a dense fog.”
Practice Wisdom
We’ve both worked as evaluators for more than 20 years and used the term in evaluation plans and reports, presentations, and more. We could have pushed ourselves and our colleagues to question its origins and utility; that mistake is an important lesson for the future. For nearly a year, we’ve replaced the term in conversation and written work. As a result, we see how the term minimizes or obfuscates diverse interests, organizations, people, perspectives, roles, or types of engagement important to evaluation processes and products. In Table 1, we compiled some of the words we’ve used to replace the term. Each time we replaced it, we tried to use plain language to improve clarity and reduce potential for bias or harm to others. We don’t expect the examples below to resonate with all readers or work in every situation. But, continued dialogue on language can be an opportunity to improve evaluation practice in meaningful ways.
Table 1. Words we’ve used to replace stakeholder and the individuals or groups we aimed to represent.
| Example Language | Individuals or Groups Represented |
|---|---|
| Collaborators or contributors | Those who co-create or participate in evaluation activities or provide in-kind resources to support evaluation |
| Community members | Those with an interest in a program or its evaluation located where activities are implemented or other relevant places or spaces (physical or virtual) |
| Donors or funders | Those who contribute financial resources to support a program or its evaluation |
| Intended users | Those expected to use an evaluation in some way |
| Other evaluators | Peers or professionals whose work shapes ours or who apply or learn from our work |
| Organizational leaders | Individuals who contribute to decisions that can influence a program or its evaluation (e.g., access to human or financial resources) |
| Partner organization | Government or nongovernment entities who collaborate on program or evaluation activities |
| Policymakers | Officials who influence or make acts, laws, or rules that can shape a program or its evaluation |
| Program colleagues, personnel, or staff | Those who plan, implement, or manage a program |
| Program or evaluation participants | Individuals who take part in a program or its evaluation (e.g., complete a survey) |
| Subject matter experts | Individuals with specialized knowledge or experience relevant to a program or its evaluation (laypersons or professionals) |
Disclaimer: The opinions and reflections expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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I read the recent article “Reimagining the language of engagement in a post-stakeholder world” (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-024-01496-4) and thought it might be of interest to readers of this blog posting.